Page 34 - Simply Vegetables Summer 2023

Wormeries
GARY HITCHEN
There was a question raised in the summer 2022 edition of SV within the article on alternative fertilisers regarding the use of wormeries. This prompted
me to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard!) as I have had and maintained a wormery for over 15 years.
I first invested in one when there were not many on the market, but a quick google search will reveal lots of options are now available. It seems that you can spend a little or a lot on them, depending on size and aesthetics, but in essence they all follow the same basic structure with two or three (or even more) levels stacked above a sump. Mine is a three-layer round one that I purchased from Wiggly Wigglers all those years ago and it has served me well. The only change I have needed to make was
to install a new tap because the original deteriorated to point where it couldn’t be opened. I swapped it out for a spare water butt tap which was a straightforward task.
The idea is that you add your waste to the top level, then once it is full, move the bottom one to the top and start again. You therefore end up with a continuous loop whereby every time the top is full, you empty out the bottom layer and move it back to the top. Assuming you manage the additions in a sensible way, the worms live happily in the top two levels, moving upwards through the system as you move the layers down.
Getting started with a wormery is simple as most come as kits that include a bag of live worms and some “bedding”, as though you are setting up with a new pet. You put the whole lot in the top layer, along with your first batch of kitchen scraps and away you go.
It might strike us gardeners as a bit
odd buying worms but be aware, it’s not
as easy as just digging up a few from
the allotment and bunging them in your new wormery because they have to be
the right type of worm. The ones you are looking for are the small bright red or red striped ones known by various names such as brandling, red or tiger worms. These include a few different species, but they are all composting worms, not earthworms or lugworms; these simply will not thrive in a wormery and won’t produce the outcome you want. If you want to save a few pounds and introduce your own worms (either to
a new set up or to an existing wormery
to boost the population) an easy way to
do this is to pile up a few sheets of plain brown corrugated cardboard or a folded-up newspaper, wet one side of it and put it wet side down on top of your compost heap.
Leave it a couple of weeks or so and when you lift it you will see a congregation of the composting worms. You can put the whole lot, cardboard, and all, into your wormery. If you don’t have a compost heap (why not?!) you can do the same on a patch of bare earth under a tree, hedge or shrub.
I said earlier that you have to “manage the additions in a sensible way” which needs some explanation. You can’t just keep on adding waste willynilly if your worms can’t eat it fast enough. The population will grow and shrink dependent on how much you add and how regularly you do it, but only to a certain level. Above that level, you will start to build a compost heap in your worm bin and once the waste starts to decay and rot, problems will
set in. Firstly, it is going to start to smell unpleasant. It’s also going to attract flies in large numbers (mostly fruit flies) and you are also at risk of inadvertently introducing a slug nursery to your plot. If you do not add enough waste, eventually worms
will start to starve but you’ve really got to forget about it for weeks on end before this becomes a reality.
This need to add waste in a controlled manner brings out a possible drawback of worm composting. It is not going to be a replacement for a compost heap on an allotment scale. Even with only two of
Worms at work in the top layer
us in our household, we generate more vegetable kitchen waste than the worm bin can cope with on its own. Equally, you are not going to be able to mow anything bigger than a postage stamp lawn and expect to add the clippings to a wormery. You have to think of it as an additional, different, composting technique, not a replacement. It’s really a way of generating your own free liquid plant feed; this is the key benefit from it.
Having said that, the list of things that you can and cannot add to a wormery is very similar to a compost heap. I’ve not asked them, but worms do seem to thrive on a bit of variety so don’t give them a whole layer full of the same waste. Balance kitchen scraps with wastepaper or brown cardboard (egg boxes, toilet roll tubes and so on) so you don’t end up with a soggy mess. They can deal with small quantities of weeds or grass clippings but avoid woody waste such as hedge clippings.
I put eggshells in ours because I read somewhere that they benefit from the mineral content, although you will end up with little bits of shell in the final compost. I don’t mind that, but some might. Don’t add cooked food or meat products and they really don’t like onion or citrus fruit – these just linger around for ages and start to introduce mold.
34 Simply Vegetables